Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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The jihad marches on (with a little Bayesianism thrown in)

Well, now we all know (hopefully) that the Boston bombing was not carried out by disaffected right-wingers targeting tax day.

And let me just throw in a little analysis here, prompted by an outraged (sensible) philosopher friend who called me up to vent a bit about the denseness of left-wingers: Let us please consider that (yes, yes, you can stop saying "Timothy McVeigh" now, even taking him into account) based on our past experience, the prior probability of a so-called "right-wing" terrorist was as of the beginning of this week, even before the revelations of last night about the identity of these bombers, much lower than the prior probability of Muslim terrorists. Now let's look at likelihoods. Yes, one possible motive for "right-wing terrorists" would have been objection to high taxes, and then April 15 might well have been targeted. But there were other descriptions of both the day and the event: It was a large sporting event with crowds and it was also known as Patriot Day in Massachusetts, which might have attracted foreign terrorists. So by no means did the likelihoods favor "right-wing terrorists" over Muslim terrorists, either. In short, "Muslim terrorists" was always the way to bet, but our dear readers will have noticed the deafening silence of our restraint here at W4 in the last few days.

Now we know that the suspects, who, by their subsequent actions have left little doubt that they really are the bombers, are Chechnyans. Can you say "Beslan"?

I'm going to go way out on a limb now, as the manhunt is on for Dzokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan already being dead in a shootout, and hazard a guess that the jihad marches on and that the Boston bombing is an instance thereof. Chechnyan Muslim terrorism was never just some sort of inter-country feud with Russia. Never. The jihad is what it is, and if we Americans don't yet know that we are a target, let's hope we figure it out fast.

By the way, please see this story, where we find Dzokhar's Russian Facebook profile (with a slightly different spelling of his first name) listing his worldview. Islam.

Their father maintains that they are innocent and is lobbing mouth-foaming threats and claims of conspiracy and the like from his home back in Russia. (Maybe he should talk to the witness in the carjacked SUV to whom they bragged about the bombing.) The mother was arrested in 2012 for large quantities of shoplifting in Boston. Charming fam. Obviously added a lot of value to the American melting pot.

I saw that, Lydia. I'm sure you've also seen this nugget from the Kadyrov clan thug who runs Chechnya over at NRO:

“Any attempt to draw a connection between Chechnya and Tsarnaevs — if they are guilty — is futile,” he said. “They were raised in the United States, and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America.”

I just saw the headline about that. Sigh. In a sense, I don't care what he says, but in another sense, it's as sure as God made little green apples that our home-grown idiots will pick it up and parrot it, and that's what's _really_ sad.

On a Russian-language social media page, Dzhokhar features a drawing of a bomb under the heading “send a gift,” and just above links to sites about Islam. Tamerlan’s YouTube page features two videos by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed. According to a report published in The Australian in January 2007, in a video that came to the attention of authorities at the time, Mohammed “urges Muslims to kill the enemies of Islam and praises martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad.”

But there were other descriptions of both the day and the event: It was a large sporting event with crowds and it was also known as Patriot Day in Massachusetts, which might have attracted foreign terrorists.

Crowds at sporting events are not more likely to be targets of foreign terrorists; there was the domestic Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. Patriot Day is a regional holiday which is widely known by anti-government militia as the day the Waco siege turned into an inferno.

Chechnyan Muslim terrorism was never just some sort of inter-country feud with Russia. Never.

Step2, my point is that the descriptions _might well_ have attracted foreign terrorists. (And obviously, did.) Therefore, the likelihoods were mixed.

What cannot be said is that somehow the explosion on that day and at that event was _more probable_ given some sort of right-wing group or person or motive than given any other group or than given Muslim terrorists.

I don't think that now that we've found out what happened we need to go into deep-think mode: "Oh, gee, this is so difficult. I don't understand. _Why_ did they do that at the Boston Marathon?" The most likely answer is that they did it to kill a lot of people all gathered for a happy day and thereby to achieve a high level of terror effect. And it did do that.

Step2, you can continue to spout on about local militia and Tax Day even after the fact, even after it was demonstrated that the perpetrators were exactly who normal people (i.e., not frothing-at-the-mouth leftists) assumed they were. But the facts are that the Atlanta bombing was and is an extreme outlier, and was operationally different from this bombing in a number of relevant respects. It was always extremely unlikely that a domestic "anti-government group" would seek to advance its cause by bombing the Boston Marathon. The idea that this was just as likely or even more likely, than the rather more obvious assumption that this was Islamic terror--which it resembled operationally and in every other way--is just lunacy. Malevolent lunacy, too, as it is really just an expression of the left's belief that their domestic opponents are wretchedly evil, barely worthy to be called countrymen.

What cannot be said is that somehow the explosion on that day and at that event was _more probable_ given some sort of right-wing group or person or motive than given any other group or than given Muslim terrorists.

Then I dispute your conclusion in the post, that "Muslim terrorists" was always the way to bet if the odds were close.

The most likely answer is that they did it to kill a lot of people all gathered for a happy day and thereby to achieve a high level of terror effect.

Agreed, but that is a standard explanation for many terrorist acts. It doesn't even begin to recognize the motives they had in creating the terror effect.

Sage,
So I'm a malevolent lunatic who is frothing at the mouth, but I'll respond to lectures on political etiquette. Okay, sure.

It was always extremely unlikely that a domestic "anti-government group" would seek to advance its cause by bombing the Boston Marathon.

Well, no sane person wants to piss of the Irish. But in terms of the evidence Lydia provided to support her argument, not your undefined "operational evidence" btw, the connection between Patriot's Day and Waco really is more of a right-wing meme, it counts as evidence against her conclusion. Now that we know about the suspects after the fact, the prior probabilities don't matter, but that doesn't mean Lydia should present an argument that is misleading to support her conclusion.

Step2, I will simply suggest that you do a little work understanding priors and likelihoods. I discussed both. Even if one grants (which I'm not actually prepared to grant, but supposing at this moment arguendo) that the Bayes factor for the evidence was not top-heavy for specifically Muslim terrorists, e.g., that the Bayes factor was 1 to 1 for specifically Muslim terrorists, that would throw us back on the prior probabilities, which favored Muslim terrorists.

If you don't understand what I just said in the previous paragraph, I don't have time at the moment to explain it any more than that.

No, this wasn't a surprise. Really. At least, it shouldn't have been.

This is also, I note, another data point.

Not that I really expect you to take much note of that when the next 9/11, Fort Hood, Boston, London, etc., etc., comes along.

Btw, the Tsarnaev family was granted asylum in the U.S. Presumably because of the terrible persecution they'd encounter if they went back to where they came from and weren't allowed to stay here. Except that now Daddy is back in neighboring Dagestan telling the boyz to "come home to Russia."

I didn't offer you a lecture on etiquette, just a description of Chris Matthews' and Dana Milbanks' ideas, which are that the singular precedent of Eric Rudolf made it just as reasonable to expect that the Tea Party movement was really to blame as, say, Muslim radicals. Yes, that idea is lunatic, and it is malevolent, and it is based on frothing-at-the-mouth hatred of domestic political opponents. Whether you are prepared to accept that, it seems to me rather obvious.

Re: my "undefined evidence," your smugness is duly noted, but terrorism in the North Caucasus is actually something I've studied in considerable depth, particularly in the period 1994-2007, during the struggle between Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basaev for control of the tenor and direction of Chechen nationalism. That said, I don't know of a single instance where an American militia has used a series of IED's, which have been constructed primarily as anti-personnel devices, to hit multiple targets simultaneously, or to effect secondary casualties by flushing a crowd from one area to the next. I could link dozens of similar bombing operations carried out in Pakistan, India, Ingushetia, Israel, etc. Also, Chechens have a particular history of attacking sporting events and similar public gatherings, as during the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov, the previous Russian puppet-President of Chechnya. There's your operational evidence.

So yeah, when I heard the story, Chechnya popped into my mind. Forgive me for being such a hidebound, parochial nincompoop, and for being right.

the suspects, who, by their subsequent actions have left little doubt that they really are the bombers, are Chechnyans.

I think they were from Kyrgyzstan. They were probably Chechen romantics. Suffered about as much as O. J. Simpson suffered from Jim Crow.

Chechnyan Muslim terrorism was never just some sort of inter-country feud with Russia. Never.

Russian wars never are just inter-country feuds. I don't know why the two latest Russian-Chechen wars be any different. See the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Does anyone remember what happened in the aftermath of that? People are still scratching their heads over why they did that and the conclusions involve guesswork on the perceived threat from Iran, and yet now they support the Iranian regime as long as they can threaten us. If they feel threatened themselves they'll probably obliterate them, until they get the bomb and the Russians are just hoping for the best it won't be aimed also at them when they do, a dubious assumption.

The jihad is what it is, and if we Americans don't yet know that we are a target, let's hope we figure it out fast.

Oh we're targets alright. But we have no shortage of enemies, and often they conspire together. Radical Islam is one, but the greatest threat is Russia and China protecting and using radical ideologies of any sort to harm us. Russia helping Iran (who openly speaks of nuking us and others) get the bomb, and China (who openly speaks of nuking us) helps –uh, I mean helped–North Korea (who openly speaks of nuking us and others) get the bomb. And we fear radical Islam and obsess over intentionally sensational events because they show well on TV, as they are planned to do. But they're all rational actors, so no worries ... or something.

I didn't offer you a lecture on etiquette, just a description of Chris Matthews' and Dana Milbanks' ideas, which are that the singular precedent of Eric Rudolf made it just as reasonable to expect that the Tea Party movement was really to blame as, say, Muslim radicals.

I don't know what comment you were reading, but I'd appreciate it if you would point out where you think I wrote that the Tea Party movement was possibly to blame. If you have a dispute with Chris Matthews and Dana Milbank, by all means take it up with them.

I shouldn't have to pull teeth to get you to explain your own argument. In light of your operational evidence it does shift things a bit, although I dispute the notion that public gathering are somehow off-limits to domestic terrorists - see the Spokane bombing attempt link below. From the tactical side of things, the internet has made those tactics better known, although perhaps not enough for an "average" domestic terrorist. My main problem with assuming that is that it had most of the characteristics of a lone wolf type of attack, so it is mostly a wild guess how much tactical knowledge they have.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Spokane_bombing_attempt

Forgive me for being such a hidebound, parochial nincompoop, and for being right.

Forgive me for expecting you to describe your evidence instead of assuming you are right. I'm sure you'll return the favor if the roles are reversed.

Re: the evidence, I really just assume you know these things, since they are public knowledge. I don't say that to sneer at you--I really just assumed you were up on those details and that I didn't need to spell them out.

I didn't suggest that public gatherings were axiomatically "off-limits" to a domestic terrorist group, only that it would be quite unprecedented for a right-wing militia to bomb a public gathering in America, making it vastly more likely that people with an actual history of carrying out such attacks were to blame. This is the crux of the argument, and seems elementary. The bottom line in all this is that there is no reason other than personal political hatreds to imagine that a "militia" was just as likely to be responsible for a bombing of this kind as a Muslim terrorist.

You're of course right that the internet is loaded with information that could be picked up and used by anybody at all, but this does not by itself suddenly make it a 50-50 proposition. You have to be motivated to attack people in a particular way, after all. Maybe eventually the left will be right and I've no doubt that the touchdown dance will continue for a decade afterward. But for the moment, domestic terrorists have one very strong uniting thread, which is the symbolic nature of their choice of targets. The Spokane bombing, OK City, the Atlanta Olympics, bombs sent to labs that use animals in experiments--all these have highly symbolic targets intended to harm people thought to be directly involved in some activity that makes the bomber angry. It would have been downright bizarre for a domestic militia--that hoary old left-wing boogey man of the Clinton era--to decide it would really help their cause to bomb a random bunch of Americans running in an iconic race.

What this all comes down to, for me personally, is the relative implausibility of the liberal expectation that white conservatives are behind every bombing, shooting, and otherwise politically interesting act of violence. There were obvious material differences between this act of terror and all the supposed "precedents" that the left has cited to justify the insane notion that our first thought should have been, "Wow, look at those anti-tax nuts go!" (which is something we've heard repeatedly from left-wing talking heads, no matter how many times they come up snake eyes). It was that general propensity that I've lumped you together with, and if there is some real significant daylight between you and the rest of the liberal crowd, all the better for you and all the worse for my gripe.

Sage, your reasoning is excellent. You're using induction and pointing out obvious epistemic facts about the inductive evidence you bring up. Not all of which I claim to have known, by the way. You should have written this post! I say that as a compliment!

Oh, and Step2, it's silly to talk about whether or not things are "off-limits." This is *comparative reasoning*. I don't know if you savvy that, but the prob. of something doesn't have to be zero for comparative reasoning to kick in.

First, my criticism was initially directed at Lydia's argument, which used some evidence I believed worked against her conclusion instead of supporting it. I'm perfectly willing to engage in other debates related to it, but I maintain my objection that her conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence she gave. In addition, the tax day argument was something Lydia claimed could have been a possible right-wing reason, not me. So on that topic argue amongst yourselves.

Second, I don't think violent extremism has to make much sense to those not engaged in it, although it supposedly makes sense to them. People with violent tendencies can go on bizarre tangents and run down the rabbit hole. So I think your bottom line is wrong, there can be rational reasons to be concerned about the militia movement, especially a lone wolf attack not endorsed by them, because the militia movement has expanded tenfold since 2008, because gun control legislation has been in the news for weeks, because symbolism can be in the eye of the bomber as Eric Rudolph proved. Nobody, absolutely nobody thinks the Boston attack is going to "help their cause" of global jihad, or Chechnyan liberation, or the daddy issues they had. By the same crazy token, a member of a militia group might want to create a distraction from debate over guns being a main tool of violence, and if he can do it on Patriot Day even better. I've seen countless attempts by right-wingers on liberal blogs trying to be coy and say that Obama should legally restrict the number of ball bearings allowed in pressure cookers to ten. Hahaha.

Again, my point isn't that it was a surprise that it was a Muslim terrorist, although the unprecedented nature of it being Chechnyan Muslims makes your intuition fairly unique. It is that we should not have dismissed the possibility it could have been a right-wing extremist out of hand, that even thinking such a thing was possible was unreasonable. And for all the objections you and Lydia are bringing up, I think you know it too, evidenced by the fact that nobody said a word about it until it was certain they were Muslims.

Step2, if we had done what some others did, saying it *was* Muslims before more evidence was in, you would have accused us of jumping the gun. Now you are using our restraint against us. Talk about a no-win situation!

Simply because one chooses not to publish one's reasonable suspicions and bets prior to more decisive evidence, when decisive evidence will likely be forthcoming within a matter of *days*, it does not follow that those suspicions and bets are *not* reasonable or justified. Again, lacking all of Sage's fascinating evidence, my own estimate would have been that the _prior_ was high for its being Muslim terrorists but that the _specifics_ of the case did not definitely tell in _favor_ of Muslim terrorists. If a prior probability is high enough, that can still justify a rational conclusion for a knowing subject, but in lieu of more evidence (known to me) telling in favor of Muslim terrorists from the _specifics_, I was unwilling to publish that conjecture. The fact that the method was published by Al Qaeda was a bit of that evidence from specifics, given who was *most likely* to be reading Al Qaeda's magazine (comparative reasoning, comparative reasoning), as was the fact that (I had read) such methods had been used by Muslims abroad, but, again, it was not sufficient to publish prior to further evidence which would be shortly forthcoming.

You seem to have an extremely rigid either-or approach to these things that doesn't enable you to deal with the subtleties of comparative evidence-weighing and justification of conclusions thereby. You also don't seem to grok the notion of a _combination_ of pragmatic and epistemic considerations that influence decisions about publishing which do _not_ mean that one "knows full well" that x conclusion is completely unjustified.

One of my points in the main post which you seem to have misunderstood, Step2, was that the specifics of the case definitely did not tell in favor of "right-wing fanatics," because a variety of specifics were available which could have been interpreted and which pointed in different directions. That, together with the fact that the prior for Muslim terrorism was higher, should have restrained the people on your side of the political spectrum, but it didn't.

we should not have dismissed the possibility it could have been a right-wing extremist out of hand, that even thinking such a thing was possible [or] was unreasonable.

Dismissed out of hand, no. But dismissed as improbable, yes. Improbable enough, in fact, to make it weird as heck to speculate about it publicly when weighed against the other possibilities. Improbable enough to make the speculation itself into a kind of Rorschach response on the part of the person making it.

Obviously you don't agree. If that is the full extent of our disagreement, then I can leave off by saying that I am relieved to hear it.

The fact that the method was published by Al Qaeda was a bit of that evidence from specifics, given who was *most likely* to be reading Al Qaeda's magazine (comparative reasoning, comparative reasoning)

“He said . . . the Koran spoke more of the truth then the Bible. He said the Bible was used as an excuse to invade other countries,” said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which the bombers also attended.

“[Tamerlan] mentioned how in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, most casualties are innocent people gunned down by American soldiers. He mentioned that America has colonial power and is trying to take over in the Middle East and Africa.”

Sounds like some people I know...

We do also have

Ammon said that “bombing civilians and justifying it under the Koran is wrong, and he agreed with me.

But, y'know, somehow Tamerlan got over that.

Just can't imagine what the motive could be...But I'm sure it had nothing to do with religion. They were probably just "alienated," poor chaps.

What's almost hilarious is that by all accounts, his American acquaintances are still bending over backwards to show how open-armed is their attitude to immigrants and foreigners, by continuing even now to praise him and affect bafflement at what could have driven him to such extremes. But he was "alienated," don't you know.

To which I say: If he was that alienated by so welcoming a country, then maybe he just didn't belong there in the first place.

Tamerlan's statement that he "didn't have a single American friend" is used as evidence for the "alienation" claim. But he went on, "I just don't understand them." Everything we've seen about Tamerlan shows something very, very different from a crazy, alienated, picked-on kid. He was 26 years old and married; he obviously *just didn't like* Americans. He appears to have been more like _bragging_ about not having a single American friend. He was a highly competent boxer, the kind of person who knocked his girlfriend around (had a domestic abuse case earlier). He induced his wife to convert to Islam. He was handsome and fashionable-looking (in a predatory sort of way), and devoutly Muslim. If he was "alienated" from American society, it was very much by his own choice. This wasn't the sort of person to be pitied.

As for Dzokhar, he was a 19-year-old immigrant living the American dream. Everybody loved him. He had been captain of his wrestling team, was loved by his fellow wrestlers and his coach, got along well with people, was a "very chillaxed kind of guy," was going to college, went to parties, and so forth. About as far as possible from a bullied, alienated nutcase.

It's funny that people can't tell the difference between crazy loner types and people who are *doing just fine* and who have obviously made a deliberate, chosen, ideological decision to engage in a terrorist act.

My take is that it is a mistake for anyone - on the right especially - to support this. The thrust of this thread, after all, is that there are a number of people in this country (many of whom are in positions of power) who feel that "right-wing militias" are the most dangerous "terrorists" in the land. Advocating for exceptions to due process - no matter how heinous the crime - may well come back to bite us.

Daniel, if it's for an extremely limited time (such as the 48 hours I have heard) and does not (and cannot, legally) involve any torture techniques whatsoever, then my only hesitation on it is lest it should taint the prosecution so that this jihadi doesn't get the death penalty he deserves.

Miranda "rights" are a creation of the court and, while they are called "constitutional rights" by a kind of understandable shorthand, are by no means direct, linear derivations from the Constitution.

If all that this means as a precedent is that a hostile administration could detain a "right-winger" suspected of some major terrorist act for 48 hours and ask him questions without reading him his Miranda rights or having a lawyer present, it wouldn't be that big of a deal in itself.

Indefinite detention of suspects or criminals apprehended on American soil, without trial and due process of some sort, would be a different matter, and I would oppose it. If nothing else, it would IMO frustrate the ends of justice, which are best served not by using the perpetrator as an indefinite possible source of information, but by solemnly _punishing_ the perpetrator after duly finding him guilty.

I realize this may not be the answer you prefer, but it is my present position, given what I know.

My reaction is that the same Court that invented "Miranda rights" also invented the exception to the Miranda warning being used here. Which is a pretty tidy demonstration of the conservative case against backing something so arbitrary and monarchical as Court-invented rights, even the ones we happen to like.

And if the only limitation that this puts is that anything he says during that period without the Miranda reading is inadmissible as evidence against him, then even Dershowitz admits that that may be no big deal, as they have all this other overwhelming evidence of guilt.

I'd add too that Miranda is a creature of the illegitimate theory of "substantive" due process, rather than the age-old understanding of due process as something that consists in...process. Justice Scalia sharply observed once that he had no idea what might be meant by a "substantive process," inasmuch as it's a contradiction in terms.

Daniel, I have never had much sympathy for Miranda as a general overarching standard for all detainment, as if it were some bedrock principle. It's not, it is a method prescribed intended to help pursue justice, but it is not the very _form_ of justice itself. For instance, I think that every adult ought to be well enough educated to _already know_ that they don't have to tell the state the things that Miranda says they don't have to tell, and in principle you ought to be responsible for watching your own darn mouth, not the state watching it for you. Secondly, I have always held a great deal of reservation about the wisdom of evidentiary rules and the way they have come down - often to the point of a judge telling a jury to "not consider" something that is a cold, hard fact that is germane to the case, because of a process problem. I think that these rules have turned the judge - jury relationship on its head, and a pretty fair sample of them ought to be thrown out just for starters.

In any case, the Miranda rules are rules that end up constraining what the state can do with evidence obtained by reason of what you tell them after they detain you. It has absolutely nothing to do with other evidence, such as (a) their own eye witness observation of you shooting at police; (b) cell phone movies taken of you shooting at police; (c) fingerprint evidence on home made pressure cooker bombs; etc etc... If, as I suspect is the case here, the police have a completely cut and dried case with all the other evidence, then they don't need to worry about compromising their ability to use what the criminal tells them after arrest at trial.

I think what you are worried about, rather, is the police acting in ways that are more like a police state rather than like a servant of the public in a limited role with carefully prescribed authority only. That's a valid concern. And I think that the police deciding to set aside the Miranda warning (and, if necessary, set aside this testimony as evidence at trial) is well within their authority on behalf of the public.

Indefinite detention of suspects or criminals apprehended on American soil, without trial and due process of some sort, would be a different matter, and I would oppose it.

My beef with the Miranda rights thing is that I see it as an eroding of due process. Today Miranda rights, tomorrow: legal counsel, trial by jury, the right to face your accusers, prohibition against self-incrimination, etc.

Indefinite detention of suspects or criminals apprehended on American soil, without trial and due process of some sort, would be a different matter, and I would oppose it. If nothing else, it would IMO frustrate the ends of justice, which are best served not by using the perpetrator as an indefinite possible source of information, but by solemnly _punishing_ the perpetrator after duly finding him guilty.

Of course you know that this is already "legal" (meaning it is the law now). And, from what I understand in this case, one man - Attorney General Eric Holder - could still declare the suspect an "enemy combatant", making it legal for him to be held indefinitely without due process (unless you consider the opinion of one man - or one administration even - "due process").

Indefinite detention of suspects or criminals apprehended on American soil, without trial and due process of some sort, would be a different matter, and I would oppose it.

I agree, but I would dump the "apprehended on American soil" qualifier." The argument for holding them without trial wouldn't have been any stronger if they had made it to Canada before they got caught. There shouldn't be any status that enables the government to hold a person without charges, trial, or other due process. The temptation of "status creep" is too great: "enemy combatant" is seen as the proper status for the worst of the bad guys, so a failure to designate a given actor as such is seen as being soft. We've seen it with the debates over where Moussaoui would be tried and now with McCain's comments on Tsarnaev. The temptation to apply the status to be seen as tough on terrorism is too great, and I would remove temptation to use it.

Speaking of Canada, you've probably seen that the mounties have thwarted an attempt by jihadists to derail a train.

There shouldn't be any status that enables the government to hold a person without charges, trial, or other due process.

Wait - what about prisoners of war? We hold them without trial or charges.

And that's just the point: If we are on OTHER soil, presumably the only reason we can apprehend them is by our military, because we don't have police powers in other countries. And if it is the army apprehending an enemy soldier in war, CIVIL laws don't apply, rules of war do.

But for a person who is fighting against us in some foreign country, but who is doing so not as a uniformed soldier of that country, but as a terrorist - in civilian clothing, not commissioned by any authority, doing acts of war and acts of terrorism - and we apprehend them with military force, they should have not greater, rather lesser protection compared to a proper uniformed prisoner of war.

That's why people make the distinction about "on our soil", where we do have police powers.

Wait - what about prisoners of war? We hold them without trial or charges.

Big goof on my part. I meant to say *indefinitely* without trial or charges. POW's are held until hostilities end, so there's a specific condition that defines when their captivity ends. Due to the nature of relations between states, it isn't difficult to determine when that is, the Korean War armistice notwithstanding. Things get a whole lot murkier with the War on Terror/GSAVE because there isn't a state on the other side of the conflict. I get that that's the fault of those who engage in that type of warfare, but I believe as a matter of principle that indefinite detention without charges or trial is offensive to human rights, regardless of who the detainee is or what his crimes are.

Have you seen the new hit liberal thing going around facebook now? Basically it shows a picture of one of the suspects along all of the various white school shooters and, I believe, the Oklahoma City bomber.

The commenters, of course, brought up that guy who bombed abortion clinics. Apparently it couldn't fit and he "didn't want to start an abortion debate".

CJ, it occurs to me that the difference between the indeterminate (in time) but determinate (in concept) detainment of POWs, until "the end of the war, whenever that shall be", and the indeterminate detainment of terrorists, is germane to the very nature of their actions. The POW is acting under the orders of a specific authority, a government of a state. The terrorist is not. When the POW's government signs a peace treaty and tells the soldiers that the war is over, there remains no further reason to detain him because the rationale for the detainment had always been "he's a danger to our state because he is acting under orders to attack us." The terrorist who attacks not at the direction of any legitimate state authority but his own preference, has the problem that he cannot readily demonstrate to us that he ceases to be a danger to us. That is, for him to knowingly take on the USA as a terrorist is to willingly accept the terms of never being able to establish that he should be freed if they catch him. If he chooses to act not on behalf of a state, then he cannot complain when no state is able to assure us that he is no longer an enemy fighting us. Civil law isn't really a good alternative for non-state enemy combatants, maybe we just need new law for this area.

but I believe as a matter of principle that indefinite detention without charges or trial is offensive to human rights, regardless of who the detainee is or what his crimes are.

I am sympathetic to that idea. At the same time, I am also sympathetic to the reality that the process, arraignment, trial, and sentencing, isn't necessarily going to satisfy justice in cases like this the same way it does for ordinary civil crime. The process we have in place is large, cumbersome, difficult, and frankly not designed for dealing with people out to eradicate the system itself and willing to do all sorts of mental/legal sabotage by taking advantage of processes designed for truly civil disorders. You know, there is a saying that "slow justice is no justice", and I am not at all keen on putting this guy on trial, convicting him, sentencing him to execution, and then having him spend 12 years on death row waiting for appeals to run through the courts. And spending 3 or 4 million in the process. And giving fellow terrorists 12 years to use him as a symbol for other acts. (Bombing the courthouse, the police barracks, the prison, etc just for starters). I am not confident that what that all does is represent JUSTICE to the people of Massachusetts. It might be justice (more or less) to the terrorist, but real justice is supposed to be justice for everyone.

Or, to make the point a slightly different way: the very essence of justice is that the criminal get a just punishment, not the method of deciding on it. Whereas the methods we apply with all of our paraphernalia are all methods to be more sure of justice - the end goal - in doubtful situations. If using the complex conglomerate of these methods actually reduces the successful restoration of justice in some case like this, then perhaps we may need to consider a different means to the real end. If you have an alternative that doesn't use up on the order of 4,000 additional man hours of labor and 12 years before we put him to death, I am open to suggestions.

In December 2011, President Obama signed the 2012 NDAA, codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history. The NDAA's dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president — and all future presidents — to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

(1) It was never reasonable to suspect the Tea Party. They do not have a record of violence, murder, or bombings. That's another way of saying they aren't close friends of the president, some of whom do have such records (and remain unrepentant).

(2) Tamerlan's friendlessness and his desire to murder Americans go together. Such folks don't make many friends in America. I'm glad they don't.

Daniel, how can you possibly oppose a bill that holds defense to contractors to account for using counterfeit parts in military equipment? Are you really that hostile to our military personnel?

Kidding.

I've read some of the back and forth on the NDAA and I think the anti- forces have the better of the argument. It seems to me to be a very bad law enacted by an increasingly lawless and uninhibited "federal" government. Too bad Obama isn't a Republican. Oliver Stone would have made a movie by now.

Does the NDAA expand the government’s detention authority?
Nope. Under current law, the Obama administration claims the authority to detain:

persons that the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for those attacks. The President also has the authority to detain persons who were part of, or substantially supported, Taliban or al-Qaida forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act, or has directly supported hostilities, in aid of such enemy armed forces.

(Key words highlighted)

While it seems specific enough, that won't stop the government from blurring those specifics. Case in point: there has already been serious talk about declaring the Boston bomber an "enemy combatant" which would make him subject to INDEFINITE DETENTION. All they need is some loose tie to "Taliban", "al-Qaida", "or associated forces". Whose to say what "associated forces" are? Well, "the President determines" that!

I agree that there may need to be something like military commissions for unlawful combatants captured on foreign battlefields. However, I think the 2006 Act leaves much to be desired, especially the fact that a person can be acquitted and still not released. Given that there have been cases of informants fingering innocent people to settle grudges, we simply can't hold people indefinitely because once upon a time they had the unlawful combatant label slapped on them.

If you're saying that Tsarnaev shouldn't get a civil trial (I wasn't sure from your comment), I emphatically disagree. Ramzi Yousef, the Blind Sheikh, the Shoe Bomber, and the Underwear Bomber are all in prison after federal court trials. Their trials and subsequent imprisonment featured hardly any of the frightful consequences you raised. I think some terrorists in North Africa offered to exchange hostages for the Sheikh, but that's about it, and there's no reason to think that they wouldn't have done the same if he were in Gitmo instead.

I know it sounds exceedingly bloodthirsty to some, but one of my major reasons for not wanting any "weirdness" in this guy's trial/questioning/process is that I want him executed. Dispatched. Six feet under, solemnly, carried out by government authority. I don't think any process other than a real trial right here on American soil has even the potential to bring about that outcome. Therefore, I want him given "due process."

Doesn't sound bloodthirsty to me, Lydia. I have no problems with the death penalty in theory, i.e. I don't think it's barbaric, uncivilized, makes you no better than them blah blah blah. I do have concerns about the way it's been implemented, and those concerns have led me to a personal moratorium on calling for the DP. However, in case like this, where there's so much evidence that law enforcement isn't worried about a confessionn being thrown out, well sure, fire up Ol' Sparky.

Tony, A long process leading to execution doesn't sound like justice delayed to me if he's imprisoned pending execution. I dunno, maybe it's a temperament thing, but I'd think of it like a guy falling off the observation deck of the Sears Tower who hasn't hit the ground yet. The outcome is certain, regardless of how long it takes.

Tony, the delays and expense, I think we should admit, have been caused by people who would really prefer that there were no d.p. at all and have set these delays up to "make it hurt." Then that "hurt" is itself used as an argument against the d.p., which is highly annoying, to put it mildly. Those delays and expenses are no essential part of applying the d.p. If anything, I think it's a matter of principle not to allow the liberal courts to get away with the "make it hurt" strategy of de facto vetoing the d.p. If we can jump through the excessive hoops, we should do so, and we should blame any injustice to the taxpayers on the excessive solicitude for the criminal of those who have set up artificial barriers.

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